down the slope. Piotr followed her silently. In silence also they
ascended the steep passage. Elisaveta seated herself and rested her
arms upon the low rail of the open summer-house. The undulating
distances lay before her in one broad panoramic sweep--a view intimate
from childhood, and which never failed to awaken the same delightful
emotion. She was looking no longer at the separate objects--Nature
poured herself out like music before her, in an inexhaustible play of
colour and of soothing sound. Piotr stood before her and looked at her
handsome face. The setting Dragon caressed Elisaveta's face with its
warm light; the skin thus suffused exulted in its radiance and bloom.

They were silent. Both felt a painful awkwardness. Piotr was nervously
breaking twigs from a birch near by. Elisaveta began:

"What is it you wish to tell me?"

A cold remoteness, almost enmity, sounded in her deeply agitated
voice. She felt her own harshness, to soften which she smiled gently
and timidly.

"What's there to say," began Piotr quietly and irresolutely, "but one
and the same thing. Elisaveta, I love you!"

Elisaveta flushed. Her eyes gave a. sudden flare, then grew dull. She
rose from her seat and spoke in an agitated manner:

"Piotr, why do you again torment yourself and me needlessly? We have
been so intimate from childhood--yet it seems that we must part! Our
ways are different, we think differently, and believe differently."